You can check out my review of today's book here.
Name: Reverend Ray Branson
Book: Cloak of the Light by Chuck Black
Genre: Spiritual Warfare
Role: Minor Character
Personality: Kind, service-oriented, welcoming
What he brings to the table: Reverend Ray hosts a soup kitchen in a poor part of Chicago. He offers Drew, the protagonist, help when he is wounded.
Spiritual role: Reverend Ray serves as a spiritual antagonist to Drew by asking him to come to the faith when Drew is not interested.
Pastorly/Worship notes: We're much more likely to find Reverend Ray serving soup or with his family than leading a worship service (largely because Drew avoids worship like the plague). He tends to emphasize more of a personal relationship with God.
Ninja Status: Yellow belt. For being in a spiritual warfare novel, Reverend Ray doesn't have as big of a role as I would have hoped.
Further Discussion: This is the first pastor I've come across who is cast as a servant first and foremost, which I found interesting. Especially in a novel that centers on spiritual warfare, I would have expected more of a preaching orientation.
I liked that Reverend Ray had a more laid-back approach to evangelism. It could have been easy for him to become obnoxiously preachy (like some other characters in the book). His faith is shown by his actions, but he's not afraid to discuss his faith, either.
What aspect of faith do you least commonly find portrayed in books?
This is super interesting :) I like how this book shows another side to our faith, because often books (and life in general) glorify certain spiritual gifts. Like mostly it's being a preacher and rallying the troops or worship or something, where in real life there's so many spiritual gifts that often aren't glorified at all (like the hand and the foot passage talk about). So anywho, it's nice to see a book that has a servant preacher.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was a nice and refreshing perspective as well. Thanks for the comment!
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